French Anti-Piracy Law Claims First Victim, Convicted of Failing to Secure His Internet Connection

According to news reports published earlier today, the French anti-piracy law has claimed its first victim. The individual, described by TorrentFreak as a “craftsman from a small village in eastern France,” was convicted of allowing his WiFi connection to be used to download songs without obtaining prior permission from the copyright owners. Under the three-strikes law in France, known as Hadopi1 this could leave the man liable for up to a 1,500 euro fine. He could also have his Internet connection shut off while still being forced to continue to pay for the connection (the so-called “double pain”). The court found the man guilty, settling on a 150 euro fine. Thankfully, the court declined to suspend his Internet connection. While we were heartened that the individual's Internet connection was not suspended, EFF condemns the ongoing application of Hadopi, which along with similar copyright legislation threatens our rights to access and publish content freely online. This ruling serves as further evidence that such three-strikes laws must be repealed.

The man explained to the court that he himself did not download the music. Rather, his soon-to-be-ex-wife downloaded Rihanna songs. However, as Guillaume Champeau of Numerama explained to TorrentFreak, just because the man did not engage in any illegal downloading doesn’t stop the French law from punishing him: “By saying he knew she was downloading infringing content, but didn’t prevent her from doing so, he self-incriminated.”

The Hadopi law has been widely criticized as being extremely expensive and largely ineffective. The French culture minister has stated that the program costs some 12 million euros per year and employs 60 officials—yet this is the first actual conviction to take place since the law was enacted in 2009.

This same minister has also indicated in public statements intentions to defund the government agency responsible for administering the three-strikes law in France. As we stated last month, defunding the agency is not enough: the three-strikes bill itself should be repealed. This conviction further proves that, funding questions aside, having the three-strikes law on the books leaves the door open for innocent individuals to face criminal prosecution even when they don’t engage in illegal downloading. This law creates an affirmative authority to secure one’s Internet connection, creating an impetus for closed and/or carefully monitored networks—making a world of ubiquitous open wireless that much harder to achieve.

As we explain on our Global Censorship Chokepoints site, Hadopi is one of several three-strikes laws that would let rightsholders shut off the Internet connections of individuals accused of copyright infringement. These draconian laws, criticized by UN Rapporteur of Freedom of Expression, are spreading across the globe and have already resulted in numerous Internet disconnections in South Korea. EFF and a coalition of organizations worldwide are working to track the spread of this legislation and coordinate advocacy efforts to stop these laws through our Global Censorship Chokepoints site.

Related Updates

A Georgia energy company has made two separate attempts to take down public documents that let Seattle residents know how the “smart meters” on their homes work. Back in 2016, a local activist obtained two documents from the City of Seattle related to the smart meter technology. But some companies...

Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we get into a Twitter fight with someone who gave our video game a bad review on YouTube. And when we say that we would never send a DMCA takedown for it. And when one mysteriously turns up anyway. This is...

With copyright being abused to shut down innovation and speech, and copyright terms lasting for generations, fair use is more important than ever. Without fair use, we’d see less creativity. We’d see less news reporting and commentary. And we’d see far less innovation. Fair use allows people...

In a victory for journalism and fair use, Playboy Entertainment has given up on its lawsuit against Happy Mutants, LLC, the company behind Boing Boing. Earlier this month, a federal court dismissed Playboy’s claims but gave Playboy permission to try again with a new complaint, if it...

In a decision that threatens legitimate fair uses, the Second Circuit ruled against part of the service offered by TVEyes, which creates a text-searchable database of broadcast content from thousands of television and radio stations in the United States and worldwide. The service is invaluable to people looking to...

Rejecting years of settled precedent, a federal court in New York has ruled [PDF] that you could infringe copyright simply by embedding a tweet in a web page. Even worse, the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking, not just embedding tweets. If adopted by other...

In a case illustrating copyright abuse of standard software protocols, Cisco Systems filed a lawsuit to prevent its competitor, Arista Networks, from building competing Ethernet switches that rely in part on commands Cisco argues it initially developed. A jury rightly found that Arista was not liable for copyright infringement based...

If you watched this year’s Super Bowl, you might have seen an advertisement for Dodge Ram featuring a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. voiceover. To criticize the ad, and to show how antithetical it was to King’s views, Current Affairs magazine created a new version. The ...

Threat of Imprisonment for Colombian Scientist Demonstrates the Far-Reaching Implications of Copyright Policy In 2011, Colombian graduate student Diego Gómez did something that hundreds of people do every day: he shared another student’s Master’s thesis with colleagues over the Internet. He didn’t know that that simple, common act could ...